| Schillebeeckx addressed how Jesus of Nazareth can affect the Christian today: belief in his physical resurrection is fading, and his message alone can hope to survive the distance between the events of men and women today, and those distant events reported in the Gospels.; Schillebeeckx's hermeneusis as laid out in his Christology, addresses Christians who have lost hope in the Church, as well as regular Churchgoers, by showing a God who is in "solidarity" with humanity, revealing his power to cast out evil through Jesus, to renew faith in a meaningful life. Schillebeeckx aims to give meaning to the Christ of faith who rose from the cross, by bringing the Jesus of history into the same view: the suffering on the cross is a work we ourselves are to finish, to prevent the death of Jesus from becoming "meaningless."; The dissertation follows Schillebeeckx's change from Christology a priori, typified by his book, Sacrament (1966), to Christology from below, detailed in Jesus (1974), Christ (1977) and Church (1989). His from below Christology is here called anthropological, meaning the analytic method which starts with the premise that Jesus of Nazareth did exist in history, and in his humanum he discovered his mission in terms of the Christ, the Messiah.; The religious journals, books and book reviews in English, Dutch, German, French and Swedish, have been searched on the temple ATLAS search engine, and in libraries, ILLS and on the Web. Their responses to Schillebeeckx's works have been analyzed.; The outcome focused on whether his method has succeeded, and had he crossed the boundary of Lessing's "ugly ditch," and had he restored faith in the divinity of Jesus as the Son of God?; The major outcome is that Schillebeeckx has established an entire system of discussing Jesus Christ, and his critics and followers have adopted the same method and language. |
